Japanese medical melodramas set in the countryside typically follow an idealistic doctor’s struggles to win the trust of the locals who are suspicious of the newcomer’s newfangled ways. Such was the storyline of “Dr. Koto's Clinic,” a hit 2003 Fuji TV drama that generated two special programs and, 19 years later, a tear-jerking feature film that, for reasons best known to its international sales agents, is called “Dr. Coto’s Clinic 2022” in English.

By a kind of serendipity, the film features the same director, TV drama veteran Isamu Nakae, and much the same cast as the series, including Hidetaka Yoshioka as the title doctor and Kou Shibasaki as his understanding nurse and wife, Ayaka.

In the film, Kensuke Goto (Yoshioka) is getting on in years after two decades on the island of Shikina (a fictional version of Yonaguni, Okinawa Prefecture), while becoming a beloved figure among the islanders, whose numbers have been steadily dwindling. (He became “Dr. Coto” when island children made a flag for his clinic many years ago and misspelled his name.)

Based on a comic by Takatoshi Yamada and scripted by Noriko Yoshida, the film is a nostalgic reunion with familiar characters for fans of the series, though no prior knowledge is needed to follow the predictable, if heartwarming, story. Also, the character arcs are all genre standards in which everyone, even those who are less deserving, learns life lessons and gets second chances.

Coto himself is a saintly figure who gladly leaves his clinic — the only one on the island — to pay endless house calls, his white coat flapping as he pedals his e-bike along the coast, which is captured in its beauty and drama by the sort of soaring drone shots not possible in 2003.

However, a disruptor arrives in the form of Dr. Hanto Oda (Kaito Takahashi), the young heir presumptive to a big Tokyo hospital run by his physician father. Sent to Shikina to toughen up in a hardship post, Oda is competent but arrogant, and sees the locals as cases, not individuals.

The real driver of the story, however, is a severe illness that afflicts Coto. After a self-diagnosis that is confirmed by a mainland colleague, he is faced with a choice: take a break from his practice to get life-saving treatment or soldier on for his patients, despite the toll on his health. I won’t give the answer here, but anyone who has seen the series, or any Japanese drama with a selfless hero, can supply it.

Further complications await, among them Ayaka’s pregnancy, the troubles of a local medical student (Ryo Tomioka) tapped to take over Coto’s practice and the landfall of a raging typhoon that tests the islanders, including the good doctor, to their limits.

To its credit, the film highlights the real-life dilemmas of a small clinic on a remote island, such as the precariousness of medical care when ties to the mainland are cut by a natural disaster. But it also shines a rosy glow over the proceedings, with the traditional, stout-hearted virtue of gaman (stoic endurance) triumphing over the weak-spirited counsels of mere rationality.

And when the storm passes, Shikina still looks like paradise.

Dr. Coto's Clinic 2022 (Dr. Koto Shinryosho)
Rating
Run Time135 mins.
LanguageJapanese
OpensDec. 16